Thousands of bnei Torah are indebted to HaRav Nissim
Sova, director of Or Le'acheinu, for the spiritual
transformation that he wrought in their lives. Thousands of
Torah homes have been established thanks to his efforts over
the past forty-five years.

The first soul that he saved was his own, when he boldly made
his way back to his religious heritage after having been torn
away from it by the treatment meted out to immigrant youth by
the Zionist establishment. He brought other lost souls back
with him and has not stopped since. With the encouragement of
the Ponovezher Rov zt'l, he started working with
Pe'eylim and with Agudas Yisroel's Absorption Committee at
what became his life's mission — enrolling youngsters
for Torah education. Over the years, he was directed and
encouraged by the Steipler zt'l, HaRav Shach
zt'l, and HaRav Chaim Shaul Karelitz zt'l.

A Builder of Torah

I first met Rabbi Sova almost thirty years ago. The occasion
was the opening of yet another mesivta in the Negev
and Rav Nissim was called in to assist with the holy work.
With his pleasant manner and approach, he once again managed
to win the hearts of children and parents alike, persuading
them to taste the sweetness of Torah education and
investigate what it had to offer.

Thanks to Rav Sova, many thousands of youngsters from all
over Eretz Yisroel have taken a taste and gone on to
dedicate their lives to imbibing Torah's sweetness, building
their homes and lives around it and conveying it to others.
Some of them serve today as roshei yeshiva, rabbonim and
heads of Torah institutions.

The list of yeshivos and Torah institutions all over the
country that Rav Nissim has either opened himself or in whose
establishment he played a part is very long indeed. "Whoever
saves a single Jewish soul is akin to having sustained an
entire world," say Chazal — Rav Nissim has indeed saved
countless worlds during his long years of Torah activism.

Torn from his Roots

He was born in Izmir, Turkey nearly seventy years ago. In
5705 (1945), when he was seven years old, he set out with his
brother for Eretz Yisroel on a journey that was
fraught with danger. The British then controlled the country
and Jewish immigration was illegal. Those who were caught
trying to cross the borders were imprisoned in British jails.
Rav Nissim's father had made the same journey twenty years
earlier and had been caught. It was only thanks to a miracle
that he was freed from jail.

Like the vast majority of North African Jewry at that time,
Turkish Jews also adhered to their ancestral traditions. The
Jewish Agency officials who processed the new immigrants did
all they could to sever them from Torah observance and from
the Torah, directing their principal efforts at the children
of the olim. That is how the Sova brothers found
themselves living on one of the kibbutzim of Hashomer
Hatzair, where they were enrolled into an irreligious
school.

After a short time, the brothers were reunited with their
family who had reached Eretz Yisroel ahead of them.
The family was living in Tel Aviv's rundown Hatikvah
neighborhood. The Agency officials did not let their prey
escape though, and Nissim was taken away from his parents and
placed with an irreligious family that lived in Yarkona, a
settlement in Hod Hasharon.

On his very first Shabbos with them, the head of the family
asked Nissim to accompany him to the neighboring farm where
there were several jobs that he needed to do.

"At first I refused and wouldn't agree to do anything,"
recalls Rav Nissim, "but as time passed and I got used to
being in their home it became very difficult to refuse what
they asked of me."

It didn't take too long before he became part of the family,
with all that that entailed.

In the end, it was the food he was served that brought Nissim
home to his family in Hatikvah. "I was given all kinds of
foods that caused me to vomit," he relates. "Things reached a
point where I used to dispose of all the food they gave me,
in the yard. When they discovered what I was doing, they
decided that I wasn't for them."

However even at home, living in an irreligious neighborhood,
even when one's family is traditional, is not altogether
conducive to adhering to one's religious traditions. Together
with the other neighborhood youngsters, Nissim was sent to
the local state-run Bialik school. In such an environment,
moving into the secular world became just a question of
time.

Nissim's mother was a G-d-fearing woman who wept and bemoaned
her bitter fate, on the day she saw her son throw off the
yoke of Torah and mitzvos. She made huge efforts to transfer
him to the only state religious school in their neighborhood,
where she hoped he would receive religious instruction and
return to the path of his forbears.

Needless to say, the education he received in the new school
brought about no great change. That type of instruction,
together with the influence of neighborhood in general, kept
him just as he was. A majority of the other students there
were children of olei Teiman who had been Torah
observant when they arrived in the country but were
irreligious by the time they completed their studies.

"At that time, the peer pressure to follow the trend of
throwing off all religious obligations was so strong that
anyone who swam against the current was utterly ostracized,"
Rav Nissim recalls.

After completing school he filled the time with odd jobs
until joining the army, where he served in the engineering
corps on a base in Jaffa not far from his home. After his
army service, Nissim and his brother set up a company that
specialized in road laying and development and in ground
leveling. There was great demand for work of this nature at
the time and the brothers did very well indeed.

Turning Around

The Jewish spark still flickered inside him though. Despite
the success of his endeavors, Nissim constantly felt that
something was amiss. "I carried a burden of sadness all the
time and the fact that I had plenty of money did not relieve
it," he says. "Throughout the period that I worked, I got to
know no small number of people who had done very well and
earned large amounts of money. Yet they were virtually all
corrupt. Whatever they possessed was not enough; they went
and stole from others and they ended up in jail."

Such close acquaintance with his environment exerted an
influence that was thankfully positive. He thought long and
hard about the irreligious circles to which he belonged.
Slowly he came to the realization that working hard around
the clock would never bring him genuine happiness and peace
of mind. That would be his only if he returned to the path of
Torah and observed the mitzvos in the way he had been raised
in his parents' home in Izmir.

His thoughts crystallized into resolution, which he
courageously implemented. At the age of twenty-three, in top
condition and at the height of his profession, Nissim told
his brother and partner that he had decided to opt out of
their prosperous business. His brother couldn't grasp what
had led him to take such an unaccountable step but he
understood that Nissim's decision was final. After selling
his share, Nissim began to make slow progress in learning
Torah, influencing other friends and acquaintances who had
drifted far from Torah and mitzvos to join him on his new
path.

He wanted to make up as much as he could of what he'd missed
as a youth. "I thought to myself, if I could get up at three
o'clock in the morning to work on tractors in the back of
beyond, I can certainly do so in order to serve the Creator
of the world and to learn Torah."

Having taken himself in hand, he began encouraging others. "I
would gather idle youths from the neighborhood and bring them
to learn every evening in the local beis haknesses in
Hatikvah, where we heard a shiur from Rav Eliezer ben
David" (who, together with Rav Pardo zt'l, later
opened the distinguished Or HaChaim girls' seminary in Bnei
Brak and other Torah institutions in both Eretz Yisroel and
abroad).

Rav Ben David really went out of his way for the sake of the
young men. "Every few weeks, he would have everybody (there
were tens of bochurim) over to spend Shabbos with him
in Bnei Brak or in the yeshivos of Yerushalayim, to impress
them with the special Shabbos atmosphere and with the holy
yeshivos."

Within just a few months, Nissim found himself working hard
at bringing Torah to others. He opened his neighborhood's
first Torah institution, a kollel in Beis
Haknesses Yosef Chaim, which operates to this day. He
also became involved in other facets of communal
activities.

"The committee of the local beis haknesses wanted to
open a hall on the premises. I asked them to open a kollel
avreichim instead so that there should be more activity
in the place, leading more and more of the local youngsters
to gravitate towards the straight path. When they told me
that running a kollel meant raising funds, I told them
that I would undertake that responsibility."

That is how Nissim found himself making his way around the
stalls and stands of the local market every few days,
obtaining donations from the many stall holders and peddlers.
A short while later, he began making appeals during the
Shabbos prayers in numerous batei knesses in the Tel
Aviv area, in which he would speak about the importance of
strengthening religion. These donations were earmarked for a
yeshiva ketanoh that he'd opened in the old, well-
known beis haknesses that had been built by
olim from Egypt and named for Rabbi Shimon bar
Yochai.

On the Threshold

One of the sheva brochos for Rav Nissim and his
kallah was held in Yeshivas Ponovezh. This came about
thanks to the chosson's meticulous mitzvah observance.
"We set the date of the wedding for Tu B'Av. I was concerned
about having the sheva brochos where I lived because
there would be many irreligious guests there who would render
the wine forbidden."

It was about this time that the Ponovezher Rov zt'l,
started the annual Yarchei Kallah summer program. Through a
friend who learned in Kollel Ponovezh, Rav Nissim joined in
the learning in the yeshiva, and the sheva brochos was
held in the yeshiva's dining room, with the Rov taking part.
"I remember that occasion to this day," Rav Nissim recalls,
"and the blessings and the encouragement that I received,
that accompany me to this day."

Even before his marriage, he had considered moving to Bnei
Brak — but when the neighborhood residents found out,
they refused to let him go. They would not agree to part from
the man who had drawn them close to Torah and changed their
lives.

Rav Nissim did not know what to do. On the one hand he knew
that he would be unable to raise a family properly in an
irreligious environment, while on the other hand, he did not
want to abandon the community that was so attached to him.

"I went to consult the Steipler zt'l. He told me to
continue my activities, because I was needed there. He quoted
the posuk, "He gives and lends all day long and his
offspring are blessed" (Tehillim 37:26) —
HaKodosh Boruch Hu takes care of the children of a
person who is engaged in bringing merit to the public."

The family moved to Bnei Brak several years later, when Rav
Nissim saw that his work in Hatikvah was being safely
continued by others.

Immediately after his marriage, he broadened the scope of his
activities and began working with Pe'eylim and with Agudas
Yisroel's Absorption Committee at enrolling children into
Torah education, the project that became his life's work. "I
received direction in all my work and was informed of its
supreme importance by the Steipler, HaRav Shach and HaRav
Chaim Shaul Karelitz zt'l. They directed me to do
everything possible in order to save children's souls and
have them placed in institutions where Torah was taught in
purity."

The immigrant absorption centers were the main focus of his
work in those days of the large aliyot of
Yidden from North Africa, Georgia, the Caucuses,
Bukhara and Syria. An old British ambulance was bought for
him and it took him across the length and breadth of the
country in his search for families receptive to his
message.

In later years, he used his own car — an Israeli
Sussita model — for taking children from their homes to
schools in Bnei Brak and Yerushalayim. "The Sussita was
opaque on all sides," says Rav Nissim, "which allowed me on
several occasions to squeeze twenty children into the car at
once. I would take them to different institutions in Bnei
Brak and Yerushalayim."

Once, during bein hazmanim, he traveled to Ashdod.
Talmidim of Grodno Yeshiva who were also working on
enrollment at the time loaded twenty children from families
of olim from Georgia and Bukhara into the car. "I said
to myself, first I'll take them, then I'll carry on with them
to some schools to register them. I arrived with them in Bnei
Brak but I had nowhere to leave them overnight. I went into
Kollel Chazon Ish and asked for help. One of the
avreichim told me that there was an empty building in
Botei Ovos (the orphanage and schools founded by the
Ponovezher Rov). That is how the first yeshiva for
olim from Georgia and Bukhara opened in Botei
Ovos."

Spreading the Message

Over the years, Rav Nissim went from one Absorption Center to
another and to outlying towns all over the country,
attracting more and more youngsters to Torah education. He
established many institutions, among them Yeshivas Chomas
Tziyon in Tel Aviv (today in Bnei Brak), Yeshivas Or Yosef in
Chaderah, Nesiv Or in Chaderah, the yeshivos Neve Eretz and
Toras Yisroel in Bnei Brak, the girls' high school in Moshav
Kommemiyus, Chesed Le'Avraham in Kadimah, Yeshivas Ohel Moed
in Yerushalayim's Bayit Vegan neighborhood. Together with Rav
Eliezer ben David and Rav Rachamim Cohen, he also founded
Yaavetz, the first talmud Torah in Yerushalayim.

When I asked Rav Nissim how he succeeded in influencing
thousands of children and parents to enroll them for Torah
education his reply was brief: "People know when they are
hearing the truth.

"It is enough to describe the state of affairs accurately and
explain the stark truth. Nowadays, not too much persuasion is
required. The ruinous secular `educational' system has done
the work for us most effectively. All one has to do today is
present parents with the information about the alternative
education that their child will receive in a Torah
institution. One just needs to go and propose it to them."

According to Rav Nissim, in many places in the country there
are parents who would be happy to give their children a Torah
education, but there is simply nobody to do the liaison work
and the children are ultimately put into the secular system.
"It's worthwhile bearing in mind," he adds, "that saving a
child from a ruinous education usually saves the entire
family."

Rav Nissim at Work

Although I witnessed Rav Nissim at work, he describes his
methods best himself. "In the past, we would go from city to
city and from one settlement to another, making straight for
the schools that had absorbed the children of olim,
who would have received a pure education in their countries
of origin. We simply persuaded the students and their parents
to transfer to a better, more Jewish type of education. Today
of course it's a little more difficult. Inflexible
bureaucracy doesn't allow it. More sophisticated methods have
to be employed."

He has developed several such ideas, such as setting up a
stand offering enrollment in chareidi education at large
gatherings (e.g. on Lag B'omer at Meron) that are attended by
many irreligious Israelis. The main standbys, though, are the
time-honored, straightforward method of knocking on people's
doors or, even simpler, of striking up a conversation with a
family at a chance meeting. "It's impossible to predict the
ultimate effect that even a word or two can have," Rav Nissim
stresses.

When he first started working, he often had a hard struggle
with the irreligious officials of Youth Aliya (the body that
organized and supervised the aliya of unaccompanied
Sephardi youngsters to Eretz Yisroel and the arrangements for
their education upon arrival). They looked askance (to say
the least) on Rav Nissim's work and the fruits it bore. "It
was terribly painful to see children who had just arrived
from Morocco, where they were used to learning in talmudei
Torah, being sent to irreligious institutions that lacked
the slightest whiff of Yiddishkeit. The same thing
happened when the olim from Georgia and Bukhara
arrived. The Jewish Agency officials who supervised their
absorption accommodated them in large housing blocks without
giving a thought to batei knesset for them. Since a
majority of the olim were observant, batei
knesset had to be improvised immediately in those
neighborhoods."

Agudas Yisroel's Immigrant Absorption Committee, which was
headed at the time by Rabbi Meir Dovid Levenstein z'l,
(who was also the Agudah's first Knesset member), took swift
action and funds were obtained with which temporary botei
knesset were set up between the supporting pillars of the
apartment blocks. The sifrei Torah were donated by
Yidden from the United States and England. "I brought
the furniture and other equipment from the Jaffa market," Rav
Nissim recalls.

Four Families out of Many

Many of the talmidim that Rav Nissim drew closer to
Torah are today superlative bnei Torah. Of these, many
hold important Torah positions — and all of them owe
their spiritual portion to Rabbi Sova.

Rabbi Michael Lasry, a well-known lecturer on Torah subjects,
is one of Rav Nissim's protegees. He spent his childhood in a
state school in Ramle and he never loses an opportunity to
express his gratitude to Rabbi Sova for his subsequent Torah
education.

"When I was a child, in Ramle, everybody used to go to the
local school, until Rav Nissim Sova, a veteran at enrollment,
came to our neighborhood. He went from house to house,
persuading parents to enroll their children in talmudei
Torah. My brothers and I were enrolled in this way.
Afterwards I went to yeshiva and, boruch Hashem, that
was how we changed our way of life for the better."

Rabbi Zecharya Shalom is a Torah disseminator who has opened
Torah institutions in Bnei Brak's Kiryat Herzog neighborhood.
When he recalls his meeting with Rabbi Sova thirty-five years
ago, he comments, "My portion and their portion are his."

He relates, "I grew up in the Beit Dagan settlement and like
the other children, learned in the local state religious
school. One day, Rabbi Sova paid our home a 'casual' visit
and persuaded my father z'l to send me to the Batei
Ovos Ponovezh boarding school in Bnei Brak. My father, who
was a simple, self-effacing man, did not refuse his request,
even though I was an only son and it wasn't easy for him to
have me in a boarding school far away from home. After I
finished at the boarding school, I continued on to yeshiva
and, boruch Hashem, I was fortunate to mature in the
tradition of the holy yeshivos. Everything that Hashem has
given me the fortune to achieve since then is obviously to
his [Rabbi Sova's] credit, for he showed me the correct
path."

Rabbi Mekabtziel Yechezkel teaches Torah to young children in
Elad. He remembers his childhood, growing up in Tel Aviv's
Hatikvah neighborhood. "I was bar mitzvah age when I finished
studying in the state religious school. After enrolling for
high school in Kiryat Malachi, Rabbi Nissim Sova met my
father and me in beit haknesses and started convincing
us how important and worthwhile it would be for me to enroll
for a Torah education in particular. Although at the time it
was not the accepted thing to do in my circle, he registered
me for Yeshivat Ohel Moed in Yerushalayim and, boruch
Hashem, in his merit I got onto the right path."

Like many of Rav Nissim's other protegees, Rabbi Mekabtziel
has opened fine Torah institutions himself that teach Torah
in holiness and purity.

The story of the Waezmann brothers is similar. "When they
arrived in Eretz Yisroel from Morocco I traveled to
their home in Raanana but they weren't at home. Their
neighbor told me that they'd moved to Ashdod. They left their
new address underneath the tablecloth. I went there
straightaway. Arrangements were made for one to learn in Kol
Torah and two others in Porat Yosef. One of the brothers, Rav
Doniel Waezmann, opened the Ayelet Hashachar Seminary in
Yerushalayim's Romema neighborhood.

The Child You Save . . .

Rav Nissim recalls another fascinating story that took place
at the engagement of his own daughter. "Several years ago,
when my daughter became engaged, the chatan's family
(olim from the Syrian Chalabi community) arrived at
the hall where we made the engagement. Two young
avreichim suddenly made their way over to me and shook
my hand, grinning broadly. They reminded me that twenty-five
years earlier I had taken them out of the irreligious school
where they had been learning, after a protracted battle with
the board of the Absorption Center for olim from
Chalab, in Netanya."

The family connection soon became apparent. "These two were
no less than first cousins of my future son-in-law. Had
Hakodosh Boruch Hu not brought me the merit of
enrolling them in religious education years earlier —
who knows? — they might have come to my daughter's
wedding wearing ponytails and earrings!"

"I have trained both men and women all over the country to do
this work and I have also assisted in the establishment of
well-known organizations that save lives."